56 JOURNAL AND PROCEEDINGS. 



This, then, is some indication of the result of the working of 

 imagination on the material of the whole world — nature, man and 

 God. What the world would have been without the presence in it 

 of the poet and his song — it is beyond the power of thought to con- 

 ceive. We could do without philosophy, without science even, but 

 without poetry to spiritualize our dreary monotony, life would be a 

 woful desert, full of dead men's bones. 



As a fitting conclusion for a discussion, however inadequate, on 

 this subject, let me quote the words of Tennyson's Poet's Song : 



"The rain had fallen, the Poet arose, 



He passed by the town, and out of the street, 

 A light wind blew from the gates of the sun, 



And waves of shadow went over the wheat, 

 And he sat him down in a lonely place, 



And chanted a melody loved and sweet, 

 That made the wild swan pause in her cloud, 



And the lark drop down at his feet. 



The swallow stopped as he hunted the bee, 



The snake slipped under a spray, 

 The wild hawk stood with the down on his beak 



And stared with his foot on his prey, 

 And the nightingale thought : I have sung many songs, 



But never a one so gay, 

 For he sings of what the world will be 



When the years have died away." 



